The Killer in the Bathroom
by Sister Rose
Summary: Sarah's son is living with two killers.


**The Killer in the Bathroom**

**By Sister Rose**

_Disclaimer: "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" is owned by Fox and other corporate entities. No infringement is intended in this not-for-profit fan product._

Sarah Connor wakes to the sound of the shower and looks at the clock. 6:30 a.m. It's Cameron, like a clock, cleansing her epidermis before class.

She'll be through by 7, sometimes leaving enough hot water for John's shower. It's still a mystery to Sarah as to when Cameron's programming allows her to obey John and when it allows her to ignore him and when it allows her to leave him only cold water for his shower.

For the most part, though, Cameron's programming seems to work as advertised – she's a bionic bodyguard for Sarah's only son, killing, crushing and destroying for the current John Connor at the behest of the future John Connor.

Sarah worries about future John and what he was thinking when he sent this machine back to her. Does he remember what it was like to live with a computer disguised as a girl? Does he remember what it was like to live with his mother? What was he thinking when he set them up to live in the same house? And is she going to live long enough to meet future John and kick his ass for it?

But more than that, Sarah worries that her son John – the current one, the one in her house, the only one she can affect – is spending too much time with a metal mind, absorbing a little too much about the bottom-line thinking of a computer and not quite enough about the humanity that bottom-line thinking was meant to save.

Sarah gets up and pulls on a pair of pants. She never gets in bed without making sure that she could be dressed and out of the house in less than 90 seconds if she needed to, but it's a normal school morning, so she indulges herself by taking a full two minutes and adding deodorant to her morning routine.

The shower splash stops, and Sarah listens intently, making sure that Cameron is removing her cleansed epidermis from the bathroom before John gets in there. Future Leader of Mankind he may be, John is still her teenage son who doesn't need quite that much visual stimulation. His mind may know that she's not a real girl, but Sarah is pretty certain that John's hormones aren't on board with that determination.

As Sarah starts pulling the sheets up over the bed and smoothing them, she hears a quick scuffling of feet at the bathroom door. Derek must have decided to try to get in long enough to relieve his morning bladder before John could claim his turn in the shower. Sarah's just relieved Derek doesn't piddle in the bushes. He's barely housebroken.

She can't blame him. She finds it hard to wrap her mind around the idea that he was younger than John is now when Judgment Day forced him to become his brother's parent and to kill to protect him. Sarah sees the fruit of that action in Derek's cold eyes every day, but his sociopathy became real to her when he shoved past her in the hall at the Internet café, after using the little girl as a distraction. Here's the real me, his face said as he shifted around her. I make no apologies for my murderous nature.

Still, Derek did a pretty good job protecting one little boy until her own son sent that boy back in time to be killed, and she can't complain of his willingness to throw his body in front of her or John should a bullet be headed their way.

The bathroom door scuffling comes through the wall again, and Sarah smiles as John wails, "But it's my turn!" The Future Leader of Mankind is having a hard time learning to share, and he has always been grumpy until he gets his morning pancakes.

Water spills out of the shower again as Sarah plumps up her pillow and tosses it toward the head of the bed. She strides toward the kitchen, mixes batter and begins plopping circles on the griddle. Cameron and Derek come in for their morning table sit-off – she can't call it a standoff when they both insist on sitting. John follows, hair damply in his eyes, and she makes a mental note that at some point soon, she needs to insist on a haircut. Hair that's too long stands out as much as hair that's too short.

John sits, and Sarah heads to the bathroom. It's finally her turn. She takes care of her own morning bladder and stares in the mirror as she washes her hands. She thinks about the daily problem: Two killers are living in the house with her son. Once more it's time to decide whether today is the day she kills them.


End file.
